Editorial: Why I can't stop taking iPhone Panoramas

So Apple unveiled a couple of new iPhones last week - you may have heard. After lining up for the new flagship iPhone 5s last Friday morning (long story, even longer line...) I spent the weekend shooting with it, and in general it was a positive experience. I've been alternating between very big (Nikon D800) and quite small (Fujifilm X100S) cameras for the past few months and leaving everything behind except my phone - which I always carry anyway - is liberating, if a little nerve-wracking.

Apple's new mobile operating system, iOS 7, is a significant visual refresh compared to what I'm used to, and after diving pretty deeply into it over the past week or so, it is obvious that the company is investing a lot of energy in highlighting the photographic capabilities of its hardware and software. The iPhone 5s's camera app is available right from the lock screen (this has been a feature for some time now) and in use the camera is fast, responsive and generally very accurate. In good light images are really nice, low light shots are decent if not outstanding, and the new dual-color flash definitely makes a difference to low light portraits. You'll find a link to the full gallery of pictures taken in a range of lighting conditions above.

To take a panorama in iOS 7 you just select 'pano' from the camera options, line up your shot vertically and slowly sweep from left to right (you can change the direction if you like by tapping the arrow).

While you're sweeping across the scene, make sure to keep the arrow centered on the yellow line as closely as possible. You'll be warned if you don't, and prompted to slow down if you're going too fast.

We'll be publishing a full review of the iPhone 5S on connect.dpreview.com in good time, but for now, before the week gets too busy I want to take a quick look at what I think is the strongest feature of the new iPhone: its panorama mode. Now, automatic panorama modes aren't new, they've been around for a while, and the feature is now almost standard in most mid-range compact cameras, many smartphones and even some mirrorless cameras. iPhone users have had the functionality since the launch of iOS 6 last year. But the panorama mode in the iPhone 5s is a little different, and that little difference is seriously impressive.

It got a little bit buried in the presentation of the phone (Shiny! New! Fingerprint sensor! Comes in gold!) but for me, the iPhone 5s's panorama mode is definitely its most interesting photographic feature. Why? Well, it's just ridiculously good, that's why. Very fast capture (30fps as you pan across the scene), a simple and effective UI, and spookily accurate stitching make the mode useful, but the killer feature is what Apple is calling 'dynamic auto exposure'.

Available in the iPhone 5s only (presumably because of the processing power required) dynamic auto exposure is basically what it sounds like - exposure is automatically adjusted dynamically across a scene, as you move the phone to create the panorama. So if your scene incorporates bright and dark areas across its span, the phone will take that into account and adjust the metering as you go, delivering a final composite image with a balanced exposure.

This panorama from the iPhone 5 shows overexposure and highlight clipping as the phone was panned from right (where exposure was initially locked from the shadow area) to left.

The iPhone 5s has done a much better job, delivering 'normal' midtones across the frame, and much more tonal variation in the very bright sky.

As you can hopefully see from the images below, the iPhone 5s's dynamic exposure panorama mode works very well. That's why there are so many panoramas in the samples gallery we published recently, and why I've spent the past few days taking panoramic shots of pretty much anything I can! Keep an eye out for more coverage of the iPhone and all (other) things mobile on connect.dpreview.com.

A late afternoon panorama from the rooftop of our Seattle offices. The iPhone 5s has accurately balanced the exposure from the shaded area on the left to the brightly lit highlight areas on the right. There are a couple of stitching errors in the decking on the left, but otherwise this panorama is impressive.

This indoor panorama highlights the dynamic auto exposure well, as we move from a dark interior to a brightly lit cityscape back to an interior again on the right. The single burned out area mid-right is where the sun was positioned, just behind some thin clouds.

This panorama was taken in the middle of a very bright day. The sun was to my right, and you can see that the iPhone 5s struggles to completely balance the exposure at the extreme right, although the light, washed-out area on that side of the frame is partly caused by lens flare, not overexposure.

The complex shapes in this panoramic shot of an outdoor art installation are handled very well by the iPhone's panorama mode.

The sun is just peaking in at the extreme right of this late-afternoon shot, but exposure is extremely well-balanced given the wide effective focal range. And no purple flare - which is nice.

The iPhone 5s's panorama mode deals well with movement, and is generally very good at eliminating 'ghosting' caused by elements of the scene changing position across the panorama. The exception is movement in the same plane as the phone when it is being panned, especially in subjects relatively close to the camera.

The couple with the stroller at mid-right were crossing left-to-right at almost the same speed as I was moving the phone. They've become a little mangled as a consequence. The figures in the middle of the frame, on the other hand, are perfectly rendered.

At a show inside a local theatre the iPhone 5s made an excellent job of stitching this highly complex panorama. When the lights went fully down a few minutes later the phone couldn't cope, but here with house lights on, but dim, exposure is accurate.

Comments

Amazing engineering feat!- of course I would be kind of disappointed if this phone-camera replaced even my old Sony R1 + PTGUI Pro stitching SW + Tower-cabinet-once-upon-a-time monster PC - ormy 1 year old D800 + portrait-mode stitched rectangular-fisheye images or 20mm wide-angle stitched images.However I am sure my wife would be thrilled with the 5s - The only issue is the price of the device and it is not waterproof - I'm sure it will be left in the garden until dew-time :-( I hope Sony comes up with a waterproof solution as neat as this one.

Have some of you actually READ the article? The author specifically mentions the iPhone 5S in the article OVER and OVER and OVER again. So NO, he doesn't mean ANY other smartphone, he means the iPhone 5S. Not the iPhone 4, not the iPhone 5, the iPhone 5S.

Understood?! Oh boy...

Little hint for Android fanboys: The specific features he mentions in the article are mostly NOT available on ANY Android phone. This is why he points them out.

Sadly, "iPhone" has become synonymous with "smartphone" . There are other phone brands out there that can do this trick (Galaxy S4 for example does it very nicely and with decent highlight management as well), so why not say "smartphone" in the title, and then reveal the brand in the text ? It's not a shame to use an iPhone for a smartphone, quite the contrary, but to trompete out how good a particular brand is, is not exactly the unpartiality that would be expected from a lead DPR staffer , imho...

@yabokkie : call it what you want ; I meant a modern mobile phone of the types sold by HCT,Samsung,Nokia, etc. I thought that was clear. And incidentally, your point of view exactly corroborates my statement about iPhone.

You may sell more devices even when looking at the OS level, but # of devs and profits paid to devs pales in comparison. You can have your shiny new big screen quad core. I will take my 64bit dual core and be able to USE is more. Check Dev #'s, Profits, and web usage. Especially when android makes everything from semi basic - Smart devices. I should hope they sell more... i my self find it sad that globally with handfuls more Mfr's Android only manages a 2x %age gain. but your world we're just livin in it

It does look impressive, although whether it really warrants yet another "hail to the almighty iPhone" article I don't know.

Would it be an idea to test several in-camera systems side by side and see what works best (well, "best").Sony pioneered this, Android phones have had it for a while, now the iPhone adds the auto exposure, and other camera brands have followed suit, too. Would be interesting e.g. to see if this auto-exposure can compensate for lack of sensor DR.

If you do such a test please do include Canon, if only to name and shame them (as far as I'm aware they still only offer the 1990s-style semi-manual PP stitching with their crapware) :p.

Not sure what Barney is trying to do. But, I'm sure that he is not saying that panorama can only be done by a iphone. Or that panorama is best done on a handheld device. Or that the iphone represents a magical user experience.

On-camera panaroma has been around a while. That's the nature of digital devices.

Here's the important thing!

Anything photographic that a small device can do. A dedicated camera can do better.

"Anything photographic that a small device can do. A dedicated camera can do better."

Again, the vast majority of dedicated cameras shoot auto / in-camera panos far worse than the iPhone 5, let alone the 5s. For example, the majority of Sony P&S cameras still shoot 1080p sweep panos only - at a rather bad quality. Panasonic's (even those of the latest TZ / ZS cameras) / Nikon's (e.g., the entire P3x0 enthusiast line) panos are even worse with their around-600 height.

Of course, you can always shoot stills (with the necessary overlap) and create the pano in PP, on a desktop. (You can even do this via AppStore apps like AutoStitch Panorama, which can be configured to save the original stills and doesn't force you to create the, when using the default settings, sub-par panos on-iPhone.) However, it's not as fast as just doing a quick sweep pano. If you want to quickly share a pano, in-camera sweep panos are the easiest way to go.

Lolz, the last time, over at Connect (see http://connect.dpreview.com/post/2177560755/apple-new-iphone-5s ), I was accused of working for Nokia and "badmouthing" Apple because I was overly dissatisfied with the lack of OIS / stereo audio recording / 1080p60 and other stuff like cheating (not true) 720p120 in the 5s :) (See photogeek's post: "Judging by the number of posts, disparaging Apple is Menneisyys's day job. :-)")

The thing is: while I don't particularly like the iPhone 5's / 5s' camera (it IS pretty much handicapped compared to, say, the 1020's camera), I *love* its sweep pano function. It's just so much better than the panorama of most other smartphones & dedicated cameras out there and allows for creating quick panos without the need for any kind of desktop pp.

The issue is not the nice pano feature on the iphone. Many cameras have a neat feature or two of their own. The issue I raised was the point of an article praising this pano feature.

Is it revolutionary? Nada. Is it critical for photography? I doubt it.

Is it some kinda of harbinger of the future? I really don't think that pano will become a popular new past-time for the masses.

It isn't important that this iphone has a better implementation than dedicated cameras. This is just software. Any of the camera brands can implement a better pano feature if they wanted. In fact, Sony will probably add this pano technology to their cameras!!!

There may be fans of handheld devices who think that cameras are obsolete.

The phone brand with better camera implement may compete better than other phone brands. However, I seriously doubt if the masses want 41mp cameras if it costs more to upload images. Most phone users will forget that they have advanced features, once the initial enthusiasm wears off.

"The issue I raised was the point of an article praising this pano feature."

Well, I think it's quite easy to understand the author. I'm too very enthusiastic about the sweep pano of my iPhone 5 - and the 5s is even better. While, otherwise, the iPhone 5 / 5s' camera isn't really something to write home about (no OIS, no large sensor, no video goodies like stereo audio or 1080p60 and the 720p120 seems to be 360p120 only, effective resolution-wise) it's quite hard NOT to love the pano feature.

"It isn't important that this iphone has a better implementation than dedicated cameras. This is just software. Any of the camera brands can implement a better pano feature if they wanted."

Yes, the COULD. However, ATM, they don't have. I'd too prefer a decent pano app on my Nokia 808, better than on the iPhone 5. Regrettably, there isn't (and with Symbian, won't be).

"Just software" huh? You say that as if software isn't very important, or that it's easy to make good software. Sure, companies can include this feature as a software update, unlike hardware. But that doesn't mean they will, or that they will within a reasonable time frame, or that they'll be able to do an implementation as good as another company's software.

it may look like small tricks, but sweep panorama, handheld twilight and anti motion blur are a great start in camera history. that we are likely to use multiframe stacking/stitching for most if not all the photos we take, just like we ourselves have been doing it for millions of years.

Maybe on a pixel-by-pixel basis, that theater shot is a bit grainy. But how many thousand pixels wide is it? If this were downsampled to any other camera's capability, it'd be incredible. I'm quite impressed by a shot in theater-level light.

My old Canon G series had a stiching feature that allowed multiple photos in a rectangular grid, resulting (on my laptop) in a huge increase in pixels for a shot (assuming the stitching was perfect, which it often wasn't). If this camera were to guide the shooter in scanning multiple rows of panos, and especially if one were to get a bit of a telephoto lens, this could make for some awesome hi-res shots.

The D800, when using a decent desktop stitcher, produces way better panos. After all, the stills it shoots are of far better quality (DR, noise etc).

As I've mentioned below, the iPhone auto sweep pano is a great way for _quick_ shots without any need to stitching. For quality, you'll still want to prefer making multiple / cancelled, overlapping photos (to get rid of moving subjects, for example - something impossible with the iPhone client) and heavy pp on the desktop.

2, the two use entirely different approaches to shooting. PhotoSynth uses the traditional still + stitching combo (also usable in "sphere" mode), while the iPhone uses continuous sensor sampling with all its advantages and disadvantages.

The same stands for variable exposure. I'm pretty much sure the iPhone 5 could also store panos with variable exposure. If nothing else, then, by reducing sampling speed. However, then, the iPhone5s would have _really_ few new features and most people wouldn't upgrade from the 5.

We can only hope iPhone 5 (4s) users also get at least variable exposure when an iOS7 jailbreak is released. (Albeit I don't have high hopes. For example, noone has managed to port the iPhone 4s/5 camera app to the iPod touch 5G / iPad 3 or 4 so that they also have cameras. It's highly unlikely we'll get variable exposure even if there is a jailbreak.)

I really appreciate this article on the iPhone 5s, and any other camera phones that the seasoned photographers here at DPreview feel that have enough merit to be used for photography, and my own piece on mind knowing that little device you carry around in your pocket; one has a good photographic tool that can drawn in a moments notice!

I am inspired by your results, especially the theater shot, looking down on the audience and stage, and all the spots of light from the cell phones; Very Funny! a work of art, and the tool was right at hand! Yes, you stated the camera could not cope, but never the less a work of art in my eyes!

I am in the market for a cell phone with a reliable fast camera, and this is a serious contender and one that you just cannot leave in your pocket for the sake a photography as you have aptly demonstrated, and an inadvertent endorsement that caters to the photographer in me...thankyou

"Yes, you stated the camera could not cope, but never the less a work of art in my eyes! "

Well, actually, it would have produced WAY better results with shooting stills and doing the stitching in either post (the best approach) or with a decent in-camera stitcher like DMD Panorama or AutoStitch.

I've posted a lot of info & comparative shots on the comparatively weak performance of the in-camera pano of the iPhones below - check out my other, earlier comments. Basically, you do NOT want to use the stock pano mode of the Camera app in (very) low light.

I misinterpreted the caption under the photograph, as thinking the camera was not coping with the lowlight; my mistake. When I tried to edit it, I was locked out...??

The caption read:

"At a show inside a local theatre the iPhone 5s made an excellent job of stitching this highly complex panorama. When the lights went fully down a few minutes later the phone couldn't cope, but here with house lights on, but dim, exposure is accurate."

I checked out your photos on flicker, very impressive. I will have to try this stitching.

What is there in the way of bi directional panorama apps for iPhone? That is, an app where you can move the scene in both the vertical and horizontal direction to fill the field of the entire image you want to capture. I have played a little with the Photosynth app, but have not been terribly impressed by its stitching accuracy. Are there others out there?

I use 'AutoStitch' for multi-row panoramas where I need some vertical coverage as well as wide. Takes multiple images which are then stitched together. I find it quick and painless, has got better over the years too.

For this, use a third-party app. As I've explained below, for this, I recommend AutoStitch Panorama or, if you don't mind the lower resolution, the free Photosynth. Both have excellent sphere stitching. The latter has better exposure difference smoothing.

Wrong. The pano mode locks focus to the first frame - at least on the iPhone 5. (Dunno if it's dynamiclaly refocusing on the 5s. Doubt it.) The focus distance can be very close. For example, this is a crop from a pano I started shooting with an A4 page fully filled by the ISO 12233 chart:

As you can see, while the subject was about 0.5 metres away, it was in perfect focus.

The rest of the shots in the same set (see http://www.flickr.com/photos/33448355@N07/sets/72157634931737846/ ) show how third-party apps fared. Note that AutoStitch Panorama couldn't include the first frame in the final pano as the subject of it was very different from the rest of the subject - hence, no AutoStitch Panorama crop.

"My Panasonic ZS25 with stitching by Photoshop Elements kicks it entirely out of the park. "

1, you can also shoot stills with guidance for further desktop processing via, say, AutoStitch Panorama. While the iPhone doesn't have zoom or OIS, it still shoots images comparable in IQ to the ZS25.

2, if you compare the in-camera sweep pano of the iPhone 5 / 5s to that of the ZS25 (this, of course, has nothing to do with shooting stills and doing the stitching in post), the iPhone's implementation is vastly superior. Even the latest ZS models (25/30) suck badly at sweep panos with their ridiculously low resolution.

Why all the fanfares? The Samsung Galaxy S4 has an excellent panorama function as well. Was there an article entitled "Why I can't stop taking Galaxy S4 Panoramas?"

The fact is, the Iphone looks nice but enthusiasts need a bigger screen and image stablisation. On a recent visit to Russia, I used my Samsung S4 more than my Sony NEX5n but really, image stablisation is a must in low light. The only problem with the Lumia 1020 / 925 is that the apps are so sparse. Why no Snapseed, Photoshop Touch etc? Tragic...

Sony Xperia Arc had it almost two years ago when we bought it and it works great - this may be excitement for iPhone users but proves they obviously missed a lot... OK, they now have that feature so they can enjoy it. Good for them.

"Sony Xperia Arc had it almost two years ago when we bought it and it works great - this may be excitement for iPhone users but proves they obviously missed a lot... OK, they now have that feature so they can enjoy it. Good for them."

Sorry to disappoint you, but the Sony Xperia Arc shoots equally bad sweep panos as even the latest WX-series Sony P&S cameras - 1080p vertical resolution, oversharpening, no dynamic exposure correction and everything you can think of. It just can't be meaningfully compared to the vastly superior iPhone 5, let alone the 5s.

I am using an app on my BBQ10 called 360 Panorama. It takes a little practice, but does a decent job of shooting quick panos. The cool thing is that when I open the panorama in an app called TurnMe Panorama, you are immersed in the panorama and it is georeferenced, so that when you turn north, your panorama is facing north. When you turn south, your panorama is facing south. Pretty cool technology.

Only problem with in-camera panos is they usually shrink the panos by quite a bit. I still prefer taking individual pics and stitching them together into a high-res 50mb image (or larger). Micro$oft's free ICE (Image Composite Editor) makes stitching photos a piece of cake.

They will have plenty of support well beyond my 2-year contract (actually, my phone rep let me go without a contract :).

I chose the Q10 over the competition due to good phone call quality, replaceable batteries, non-proprietary connections, non-proprietary tunes, durability and, of course, the great keyboard. This is my third BB. I'll cross the bridge to whoever has the best features when the time comes for a new phone.

The only thing lacking with BB is app support. Rumor is that the company may go private and continue on as a niche brand. Maybe a 'droid2BB app interface would fix things.

Nice Editorial! Thank you. Even though i didn't have much interest in cell phone photography (at least before i read this editorial) This is very interesting/enlightening. Your point was that the new dynamic range feature improves pano's. As one who has done hundreds of pano's with a DSLR, i am blown away at the quality achieved in 5 sec.of user effort. Sure i can get better quality with my dslr but i can't do it in 5 sec (setup, post processing etc). I guess some missed the point that this was an editorial and not a review, and not trying to claim no other cell phone or camera can do pano's. Keep up the good work. And for those not interested in this type of article.... don't read it. :-)

I tried taking panorama photos several years ago using an oylmpus and it's stitching software on a computer. It was a painful failure. Now using the samsung note 2. It is great fun and works properly.I understand why you are doing it on the iphone.

Actuals Sony cameras have the same function and work very well.On A99 full frame too and is way better tnan this.Only dinamic exposure is better here, but using big sensors you can perform same good post.

True for a crop, but not when it's actually that wide a view. Also there are ways to view panorama's full height filling the screen and then panning from left to right. Even better of course is to make a huge wide print and put it on the wall, which will look 100 times better than one touching the ceiling because it has too much height instead of useful width.

I am very impressed with the panorama capability of iphone5, actually I'm surprised that it works much better (in panorama mode) than all of my sony camera (5N + some compacts) ... If only the screen were larger ....

Better how? The dynamic exposure is an improvement for sure, but outside of that Sony's Panos are pretty comparable (as far as stitching, ease of use, etc)... Plus with a NEX you can shoot them at any focal length and aperture, which is just as huge as dynamic exposure (which you could always sorta do in post).

Not trying to knock the 5s, but Sony's been doing impressive panos for a while and they popularized the whole sweep method to begin with.

Got a NEX-6, got an iPhone 4S and carry both fairly often. I use pano a lot on the iPhone but almost never on the NEX. The iPhone is more convenient, 'good enough' for most of what I'd want to do* and it's free from the irritating clacking noise the NEX makes.

Excellent review. Thanks a lot Barney.Me too, I'm considering upgrading my iPhone 5 to the new 5S so I can use it as my travel camera when in LA next week. I got a DSLR and wanted a smaller camera for the vacation trip, had many compacts in mind but now I'm thinking that instead of buying a compact I better get the 5S.

Barney, thanks for the great article! I absolutely consider the iPhone to be a serious camera for this use case. I have been taking hand-held panoramas for literally decades, and I have always sought out small and light cameras so that I will actually have the camera with me when the panoramic opportunity reveals itself. My first panos were shot on a Yashica Samurai half-frame film camera circa late '80s, where I hand-cut a series of prints with an X-acto knife and taped them together to get the pano. I extended this habit into earlier digital cameras using stitching software. When I bought my Sony Nex-5N, I was thrilled with its panoramic mode... until I started to use my iPhone 5. The ability to capture a spacious scene with the camera in your pocket greatly increases the chance that a panoramic image will be born. I've also found that in good light my iPhone is as good or better than the Sony for my needs. The increase in quality in the 5S is impressive and noteworthy.

While I am an avid digital photographer, a while ago I bought a Horizon Perfekt panoramic film camera. It is quirky yet gives great results. I discovered that vertical panoramas can be seriously impressive as well.

Of course an iphone is more convivial but the Horizon makes for a nice experience. Worth investigating, it is not that expensive. I plan to take it with me on my holiday trips (next to my digital camera).

The stock Android client produces small panos. The GS4 surely produces a large one but it's pretty much an exception to the rule. For example, the LG G2 produces some 10 Mpixel panos - that is, pretty small.

"While Apple product lovers just care about how well their gadgets works, android lovers are all about comparing to Apple products and criticizing them.Is this an inferiority complex?"

Nope. Fact is though Android phones have done panos for a while now. It's not a huge deal that any phone can do it really. I just say "Welcome to 2012 iPhone users! Took you long enough!" hehe kidding. Enjoy your iPhone, but don't make it's "new" features sound like it was the first to have it.

Wanna see Apple fanboys making fun of Android? Check out MacRumors...Apple's programmed them well to attack anyone who says anything bad about iOS or the iPhone or mentions Google/Samsung/Android. The common attack is "Ewww plastic phones" ... now they can't say anything now that the 5C is plastic...well they'll say "But it's APPLE'S plastic"

"The stock Android client produces small panos. The GS4 surely produces a large one but it's pretty much an exception to the rule. For example, the LG G2 produces some 10 Mpixel panos - that is, pretty small."

Considering most who use the pano feature in mobile phones probably won't be printing them, at least not wall-sized, that point is moot. If you plan on printing wall-sized panos, then you shouldn't be using a mobile phone in the first place.

There are a lot of pano apps on iOS. However, none of them can access the camera in a way the stock Camera app does - that is, sweep pano is simply not possible in third-party apps. (Unless you shoot video behind the scenes and, then, stitch video framegrabs. The resulting quality is, of course, pretty bad in that caase.)

Nevertheless, the traditional still stitching-based approach does have a lot of advantages over the sweep panorama employed by the stock iPhone camera client (e.g., variable expsoure on all kinds of iDevices, not only the 5s.)

Y'all sound pretty foolish, please tell some of you were just being ironic and reenacting bad fanboy stereotypes... It's not like panos are new to iOS either, they've been available for like a year no?

I do think the dynamic exposure is pretty well executed tho... Certainly seems to cope with varying lighting conditions better than my older Sony HX5. Couldn't tell ya how it compares to the three Android phones I've had since I rarely take panos with them (big Android fan tho), and I haven't tested my Panasonic LF1 enough either.

My first Motorola Droid from 2009 did pano, you sweep and it would snap and stitch them together. Last year I was taking sweep panos 45 feet under water with my Sony TX-20 in and enclosure. I usually have this camera in my other pocket for when I want a good picture. I'll be checking out the 5S because it has the finger print reader I've wanted for over a year now. Not that and the camera will be enough to get me to reduce and limit my storage to only 64GB.

What's the equivalent focal length for the iPhone 5s lens, like 29mm? Most P&S will lock the lens around there or even wider, I guess that's a nice upside of shooting panos with mirrorless models or any ILC/DSLR in general.

Yes they look great at thumbnail size, then you enlarge the shots especially the concert pano and it's OMG, this impresses people. Base ISO, good light and it's pretty darn good, otherwise IQ falls off a cliff rapidly.

Some of you are crazy. It's still possible to use an older DSLR and shoot panoramas. It's called a TRIPOD and STITCHING SOFTWARE.

I'm referring to the whiners below that are bemoaning the fact that their camera doesn't offer this. A panorama isn't magic and you don't need this built into a camera to be able to do I, and do it as well or better than in-camera stuff.

I shoot panos with my Sony rx100 and fuji xe1, but also with a nikon d80 on a tripod if that's what I have with me.

I never really thought about this type of photography (panoramas) before reading this article. They always seemed like too much effort. I also did not want an Iphone 5S, but now I am seriously interested!

I am not interested in mobile phones so would not have seen this article on the connect site. But I am interested in photography so am pleased to find it here.

it's really convenient. Just a tip that you don't need the iPhone 5s. I've been getting great results on my 5 since the software supported this, and I bet the 4 does it too. In parallel, my windows phone (a Nokia 920) also does it, equally conveniently. So there are choices out there :)

The only 'new' thing here is the dynamic auto exposure - which does really make a difference in some situations. It's something we're hoping to see developed for cameras too, although (for now) I suspect that it's only possible because of the enormous processing power available in top-end smartphones.

People forget how inaccessible panorama photography used to be. I used to admire film panoramic cameras and knowing I probably couldn't budget for one.

With film SLRs I fought to stitch scanned film frames together manually. Then software automated the process, and digital SLRs made it even easier.

To have this capability as a one-shot feature in a pocket camera is amazing. (Who cares if this camera is called an iPhone, it's really a versatile 8MP pocket camera with digital wireless capabilities.)

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The iMac Pro finally has a release date! The 8-core and 10-core models will arrive on December 14th, starting at a whopping $5,000 for the base model. 14- and 18-core models won't be available until 2018.

Apple and Google both offer improved Portrait Modes in their latest devices, but the two manufacturers take somewhat different approaches. Take a look at side-by-side shots to see how they square up and learn about the technologies behind them.

Moab, Utah is known for its unique desert landscapes as well as a multitude of adventurous outdoor activities. We traveled there recently with Scott Rinckenberger and the Olympus OM-D E-M10 III for an action-packed weekend of rock climbing and mountain biking – with a sunrise helicopter ride for good measure.

The Olympus 45mm F1.2 is one of the company's three F1.2 lenses, promising 'feathered' bokeh wide open, and a portrait-friendly effective focal length of 90mm. Check out our updated sample gallery to see what it can do.

It's the most wonderful time of the year: time to vote for your favorite cameras and lenses in our year-end Readers' Choice Awards. It certainly was a good year for compact cameras – cast your vote before the polls close!

Queens of the Stone Age frontman Josh Homme is under fire today after video and photos seem to show him purposely kicking photographer Chelsea Lauren in the face during last night's performance. His apologies, so far, have not gone over well.

NiSi Filters has announced a new variable ND filter that offers 1.5 stops and 5 stop of density variation and, at least according to the company, doesn't suffer from the dreaded X-effect at its most extreme settings.

National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen and the Sea Legacy team were filming through tears, as they documented some of the final hour of a starving polar bear's life. The resulting video is haunting.

This year, plenty of amazing cameras, lenses, accessories and other products came through our doors. As 2017 winds down, we're highlighting some of our standout products of the year. Check out the winners of the 2017 DPReview Awards!

Are you a speed freak? Hungry to photograph anything that goes 'zoom'? Or perhaps you just want to get Sports Illustrated-level shots of your child's soccer game. Keep reading to find out which cameras we think are best for sports and action shooting.

Still yearning for an Aperture replacement? Here's a quick overview of RAW Power, a Raw image editor for iOS that pairs with the Mac application introduced in 2016. Take a look at some of its capabilities.